CAD lessons for beginners.

[carlw]

Hi all,

 

I have recently started a YouTube channel called 3D drawing for your model railway.  With the aim to teach beginners how to use Fusion 360 to be able to draw things for their layout.

 

if you are interested in expanding you modelling into 3D printing please take a look.

 

https://youtube.com/channel/UCO6U0E0fVTEm9RUQMRtKVKQ

 

I would also be really interested in anyone’s feedback

 

Thanks

 

Carl

[alangdance]

Very good. Very well explain. Waiting for the next one. Hopefully you will do some on wagons or DMUs etc.

 

Alan

[carlw]

Hi Alan,

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

At the moment I’m just working through some basic models to show how to use some of the tools within the fusion 360 software, while still showing how to draw some items that people may find of use.  The plan is to the go on and show how to draw more complex items including rolling stock and also have a section where people can ask how they could draw specific items.

 

Cheers

 

Carl

 

 

[Paul_in_Ricky]

An interesting series of tutorials.

It's a bit curious to know who this is pitched at. There's a degree of assumed knowledge that might make them difficult for complete novices to get into, eg people coming from Tinkercad may not appreciate your chosen workflow of working with extruded sketches, rather than manipulating primitive shapes. 

 

On a technical note, the sound quality could be a bit better and changes on some videos when you've done second takes. Not bad, just room for improvement.

[njee20]

If you're coming from TinkerCAD are you a complete novice? I confess to not having watched them in full, but my presumption was that it was people who don't know a CAD package full stop.

 

It's a great idea - I think you may need to temper expectations when people ask "how can I draw an XYZ class DEMU as it appeared at 3pm on Friday 93rd of Neptember 1984", as you'll do nothing but produce CADs on demand for people! There comes a point that arming people with the tools and knowledge is all you can do.

 

Not wishing to single Alan out above - but you kinda need to know the basics (and indeed the not-so-basics) and then there's nothing between a DMU and a wagon really.

[Kris]

22 minutes ago, njee20 said:

If you're coming from TinkerCAD are you a complete novice? I confess to not having watched them in full, but my presumption was that it was people who don't know a CAD package full stop.

 

There is a vast difference between TinkerCAD and Fusion360 despite the fact they are created by the same company. The way the work to achieve the same ends is from a users point of view is like chalk and cheese. When I transferred between the 2 I certainly felt like a novice again. The thing that could be transferred between the 2 were the methods of navigating the workspace.

[scottystitch]

As one who has come to Carl's tutorials from Tinkercad, I find his lessons to be excellent for me, and just what I needed.

 

I'm very grateful to him for taking the time to produce the videos.  I like the style and the evolution from one lesson to the next.

 

As Nick says above, I'll be happy with a generic "this is how you'd approach drawing up a wagon."," this is how you'd approach drawing up a coach",  etc, without getting into specifics.

 

".......teach a man to fish...."

 

Best

 

Scott.

[carlw]

58 minutes ago, Paul_in_Ricky said:

An interesting series of tutorials.

It's a bit curious to know who this is pitched at. There's a degree of assumed knowledge that might make them difficult for complete novices to get into, eg people coming from Tinkercad may not appreciate your chosen workflow of working with extruded sketches, rather than manipulating primitive shapes. 

 

On a technical note, the sound quality could be a bit better and changes on some videos when you've done second takes. Not bad, just room for improvement.

Hi,

 

I would say at the moment I’m aiming at complete beginners, but that’s not to say that others with some experience would gain any knowledge from the lessons.

 

Thanks for the feedback on the Sound.  At the moment I’m using a mike on my headset, if the channel takes off and i get the subscriber support I will look at buying a decent mike. 

 

Cheers

 

Carl

[carlw]

2 minutes ago, scottystitch said:

As one who has come to Carl's tutorials from Tinkercad, I find his lessons to be excellent for me, and just what I needed.

 

I'm very grateful to him for taking the time to produce the videos.  I like the style and the evolution from one lesson to the next.

 

As Nick says above, I'll be happy with a generic "this is how you'd approach drawing up a wagon."," this is how you'd approach drawing up a coach",  etc, without getting into specifics.

 

".......teach a man to fish...."

 

Best

 

Scott.

Scott

 

Thank you for you feedback and I’m glad your finding the content useful.

 

yeah I’m not sure I will do complete lessons on how to draw a complete wagon. I had someone message me about how to draw a specific shape on a wagon he was drawing yesterday.  It would take me only take me a couple of minuits to create a short vid to have shown the answer and lots of people would find it useful.

 

cheers

 

Carl

 

 

[Kris]

If you are looking for suggestion of things that people might find hard, how about a ribbed buffer. It's possibly the hardest item to create on an older wagon. 

[njee20]

Anything with compound curves too!

[Paul_in_Ricky]

1 hour ago, carlw said:

I would say at the moment I’m aiming at complete beginners, but that’s not to say that others with some experience would gain any knowledge from the lessons.

I'd suggest that it will be the people with some experience that will benefit most from these. There's some excellent tips and techniques there.

 

It can be easy for knowledgeable people to fail to appreciate quite how little absolute beginners to techy subjects know. As an example, if you open Fusion 360 for the first time the screen will be different to your tutorials, there'll be a grid displayed and the data panel will be on the left, that will confuse some.

As someone who has written guides for specialist subjects and then had to support absolute novices, I'd say it's a continual process of amazement that some people dabble with technologies they have absolutely no understanding of and need 'click by click' help.

[justin1985]

28 minutes ago, Paul_in_Ricky said:

It can be easy for knowledgeable people to fail to appreciate quite how little absolute beginners to techy subjects know. As an example, if you open Fusion 360 for the first time the screen will be different to your tutorials, there'll be a grid displayed and the data panel will be on the left, that will confuse some.

As someone who has written guides for specialist subjects and then had to support absolute novices, I'd say it's a continual process of amazement that some people dabble with technologies they have absolutely no understanding of and need 'click by click' help.

 

Couldn't agree more with this. Through work I've taught a training course for Geographic Information Systems (cartography) for several years, and despite it being advertised as only being suitable for people with advanced Excel / spreadsheet experience, I've had to literally show some attendees how to use a mouse on occasion.

 

Those who have needed a very literal "click by click" level of support have, alas, tended to get very little from even intensive support with technical software in my experience. To be perfectly honest, I think if someone is thrown by instructions that skip the opening screen, they'd be far better off getting more hours under their belt with something much simpler (i.e. becoming genuinely confident with Office software and their operating system) before trying to tackle Fusion360 (or QGIS ...)

[Pete the Elaner]

Thank you for sharing some of your experience & knowledge.

I have started to watch the videos but have a little experience with Sketchup so will be interested to see how differently Fusion 360 works.

[Nimbus]

3 hours ago, njee20 said:

Anything with compound curves too!

e.g. Class 47 cab roof!

 

The Nim.

[Tomsontour]

Really enjoying this series buddy and learning a fair bit from it can I ask for some videos as I'm planning on using a 3d machine for buildings etc, a basic house for example so doors windows etc. But really useful so far thank you

 

All the best 

Matt

[Kris]

3 hours ago, Tomsontour said:

Really enjoying this series buddy and learning a fair bit from it can I ask for some videos as I'm planning on using a 3d machine for buildings etc, a basic house for example so doors windows etc. But really useful so far thank you

 

All the best 

Matt

The biggest challenge with doors and windows in the smaller scales is getting a balance between the level of support to allow for printing and a thickness that looks sensible. Some of this will depend on the machine that you use for printing. I generally find that I can print a window with 6-8 panes using a frame thickness of either .5 or .4 of a mm. With a previous machine that I had access to I could not get finer than .8 of a mm before the print failed. 

For wood doors the challenge is showing the planking detail. You tend to have to accept that the gaps between the planks to show this detail need to be larger than scale. 

[alangdance]

I find the same in N Gauge that anything below 0.4mm will have issues with printing. Also Carl suggest only a 0.2mm depth for the mortar. Yes it will print this ok but I find that you get better result with a depth of 0.5mm will help the look of the mortar lines stand out more in this scale.

 

Alan

[Kris]

1 hour ago, alangdance said:

I find the same in N Gauge that anything below 0.4mm will have issues with printing. Also Carl suggest only a 0.2mm depth for the mortar. Yes it will print this ok but I find that you get better result with a depth of 0.5mm will help the look of the mortar lines stand out more in this scale.

 

Alan

I find 0.3mm works for mortar depth in N. Personal preference and all that. 

[Bluemonkey presents....]

Carl, thank you for posting these tutorials. they are very helpful and personally I really appreciate them. Again thanks.

[carlw]

22 hours ago, Tomsontour said:

Really enjoying this series buddy and learning a fair bit from it can I ask for some videos as I'm planning on using a 3d machine for buildings etc, a basic house for example so doors windows etc. But really useful so far thank you

 

All the best 

Matt

Hi Matt,

 

I’m glad your enjoying the videos.

 

Over the next few videos we turn the wall we have drawn so far into a building.

 

Thanks

 

Carl

[carlw]

17 hours ago, alangdance said:

I find the same in N Gauge that anything below 0.4mm will have issues with printing. Also Carl suggest only a 0.2mm depth for the mortar. Yes it will print this ok but I find that you get better result with a depth of 0.5mm will help the look of the mortar lines stand out more in this scale.

 

Alan

Hi Guys,

 

Yes you may get better results from thickening up the mortar lines a bit,  And as you say it really does depend on what printer you use.  

 

Cheers

 

Carl

[JCL]

Hi @carlw, before printing my own buildings, I created a calibration block. It’s a 2mm thick vertical box that has holes in it on it from front to back that range from 0.2mm to 3mm thick so I can find the hole size I need to allow wires to be thread through. As you’ll know, a 0.5mm hole in a drawing program will often be smaller when printed .
 

Then on the other half of  the front face, I have indented lines ranging from 0.1mm wide and deep to 0.3mm wide and deep. On the back, the same width lines are raised by 0.1mm to 0.3mm that way, I can check mortar lines and such. I’m going to make sure I print one of these each time I change the settings or change my resin.

For the Mono X at 4mm scale, a 0.2mm mortar width/depth works for me, but for my machine, the 0.3mm mortar width and depth is better. As you say, it depends not only on the make and model of the machine, but even within that, machines that should be identical have small biases, and then there are printer settings and for resin machines, resin make, type and temperature to take into account. All of these things make a difference to the final print.

 

We seem to be working in parallel as I’m creating some buildings in Blender when I get the chance. It will be interesting to see where the two programs diverge.

 

 

[AndyH]

Hi Carl,

That’s a great start, thanks for doing this I am sure lots of people will find it useful and really help them, with a good range of examples and tools used.

 

I’ve used Fusion360 for a few years now, and delivered training, and it is interesting to see how people deliver it. You are doing great.

 

I use camtasia at work, but I would recommend any software that captures mouse clicks to really clarify menu choices. I have mixed feedback to captioning, very marmite. 
 

Look forward to viewing more!

Cheers,

Andy

[carlw]

18 hours ago, AndyH said:

Hi Carl,

That’s a great start, thanks for doing this I am sure lots of people will find it useful and really help them, with a good range of examples and tools used.

 

I’ve used Fusion360 for a few years now, and delivered training, and it is interesting to see how people deliver it. You are doing great.

 

I use camtasia at work, but I would recommend any software that captures mouse clicks to really clarify menu choices. I have mixed feedback to captioning, very marmite. 
 

Look forward to viewing more!

Cheers,

Andy

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your constructive feedback,  I'm hoping that tutorials can take away some of people fear of CAD and enable to modelling community as a whole benefit from it as its a wonderful tool.

I have had some feedback on other forums about not introducing some of the functions of Fusion early enough I.e the copy, pattern and mirror functions, especially on items like the Skip.  I think the way i have done it is based on the skills i have learnt in my day job as a Driving instructor.  We teach in a way that you build skills up in layers rather than through everything at someone from the start.  So my thinking was get people to practice how to create a sketch and dimension it over and over rather than just use the power of the software.

Cheers

Carl